Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Hello! It's Jai's Birthday today, but sadly he is at work, and I am sitting here alone. Anyway, I took a picture of him leaving the house, so here is his birthday picture. Happy Birthday!!!!!He's spending it at the theatre, for their annual general meeting. We were there last night to see Persepolis, another good one. I took this picture then:It snowed again this morning, but then it turned to rain, so most of the snow has disappeared again. We had lots of plans for this weekend, but then I got a bad cold, and spent most of the weekend lying in bed, so none of them got done. So that was kind of crappy. Lying in bed, sick with a cold, however, is the perfect time to read the original Mary Poppins, and Mary Poppins Comes Back, for the first time. I picked them both up two library sales ago, and didn't realize until now that they are actually the original, first print editions. So that was kind of cool - that was about my intellectual level all weekend. Still, we did manage to get some Easter in. Jai made an Easter egg hunt for me with Hershey's kisses and jelly rabbits, and Pearl (our neighbour) dropped off two plates of food. Plus I spent some time with the bunnies, and they got a couple of extra carrots for the occasion.And that's really all our news. In between lying in bed, and all the flurries, I have been trying to get some pictures of the family of robins that have moved into the empty lot across the street from us. There are six or seven of them, at least, and I think they are Newfie robins, as they have VERY red breasts, and almost black faces, which are apparently the signs. I hope they stay around for a while, and maybe even build some nests. That would be very cool.

I'll keep trying!And it's back to work for me tomorrow. After this week, I am feeling a little bit behind. It looks like Jai and I will both be working all weekend. In the immortal words of Will Rogers,"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there."(Yes, I admit, I am having way too much fun with the Quotationary!)

Tuesday, March 18, 2008

We've been very lucky with the weather this week, considering the stories we hear coming out from our near neighbours to the East and West of us! We did have a little bit of snow, but it's mostly melted now. Only the big piles, and the really shady spots still have snow. We poked around in the yard a little, and discovered the first signs of spring, in the form of some little snowdrops just starting to peek out. All three seasons in one shot:

This week I finished the coffee tables that were a custom order for a girl down in the States. I'm very happy with how they came out, and it was a good experience to get them shipped out. We drove down to Kentville and shipped them off this morning.Also, Jai made me a rolling pin for rolling out slabs of clay, so I made a little creamer, just for fun. Sadly, I have nowhere to fire it, so it will probably never get finished. Still, it was fun to make. I just have a small amount of clay that our friend Phillip gave me, so next time we're in Halifax I think I might buy a bag, just to play with. Eventually, I can just melt it all back into wet clay and start again, at least until I can get Jai's Mom's kiln out from Ontario. We haven't figured out how that's going to happen yet.This rolling pin is pretty rough, as I just needed something quick and dirty, but I actually really like it, and I'm hoping Jai will make more so we can sell them. It's a good prototype.At work, Stephen has got his CNC set up now. He cut out the parts for a desk on it earlier this week, and we spent the morning coming up with all sorts of ideas for ready-to-assemble furniture that doesn't require screws or glue. It's all very exciting.

Hmmm...what else? I made home-made granola bars last week, and they turned out perfectly. I got the recipe on allrecipes.com, which, if you haven't heard of it, is a mouth-watering way to spend an afternoon of internet browsing. Tonight we're having home-made chili, but we stopped at the meat market in Berwick on the way home from shipping the tables, so we are using locally bred, raised and butchered beef, which is kind of nice.We stopped at the beach earlier in the week to look for some good rocks for a set of custom bookmarks I am making for a girl.Coming over the mountain, I was finally able to photograph this frozen waterfall, which has been intriguing me on my drive to work in the morning. I think it's the combination of cold weather and super sunny days that produces something like this, but it sure is pretty.Spring is when you feel like whistling even with a shoe full of slush.~Doug Larson

Saturday, March 08, 2008

"Ah, dear nature, the mere remembrance, after a short forgetfulness, of the pine woods! I come to it as a hungry man to a crust of bread." ~Hanry David ThroreauYesterday was a beautiful day here in the Valley - a promise of spring. I took some time to wander around in the park behind our house with my new camera, so I thought I should post some of the photos.Something about these branches reminds me of script.This little frozen pond is hiding at the back of someone's property. Most of the ice is gone now, though.Pussy Willows!Then today, Brandon, Jo, Jai and I had lunch in Annapolis Royal, and we wandered around there for a bit. It was a bright but foggy day - one of my favourite kinds - with lots of misty rain and damp air. I love how colours come alive in weather like that, so I brought my camera along for that as well.And I always wanted to pull over and look at this bridge, so we finally did.

Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Hey Guys,Another week has passed, and time has flown by once again. We've had a couple of Congratulations to offer this week. First to my cousin Christie, who just had her first baby. Hello, little Brynn! (You can link to her Blog over on the menu bar) Also, Congratulations to Mom and Errol, who just sold their house. I'm kind of sad to think that I will never see that house again - it's full of happy memories, and big life events, for me. Anyway, I'm totally looking forward to seeing them soon in a sunny Nova Scotia locale near me. The West Coast Invasion continues!Also this week, Jai's band played their first live show. Unfortunately it happened in the middle of another big snow storm (pictured above) but they still drew a pretty good crowd of brave souls, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves immensely. I tried to get some good pictures, but those silly guys just would not stand still while they played!Afterwards, we retired to the local pub, which stayed open just for us.The snow has all melted away today. This morning our driveway was a giant field of ice, but I think the curling has really helped my ability to be on ice. I can almost take the tape off my slider! (That's an in-joke for you curlers out there.) We won our game last night, which resulted in us feeling fairly cocky about the whole thing.

Other than that, we've been busy like beavers in the shop, making big piles of expensive sawdust. We've both been kept busy with orders, so that's always nice. Here's my latest marquetry pic, of an American Goldfinch:Also, I did a little trade with a girl in Yarmouth. She has a wonderful blog that I love to read, and she makes amazing soaps:You can check out her stuff at www.birchbarksoap.etsy.comI can highly recommend it.Well, I think that's all our news. We're having homemade pizza for dinner tonight, and we finally used up the last of our sundried tomatoes, which has me dreaming longingly of our summer garden. Last year I thought we had way too many tomatoes, but I can already tell that I'm going to plant at least that many again! I guess it is a good thing there's a winter in there. How else could we get a break from gardening to daydream about our perfect garden?